Praise for Ancestral Dreaming
“Schiller does an amazing job of integrating trauma psychology, mysticism and spirituality, science, and the field of dreamwork/studies.”
—Deborah L. Korn, PsyD, clinical psychologist, faculty member at Trauma Research Foundation and EMDR Institute, and coauthor of Every Memory Deserves Respect
“A rare combination of scholarship and fascinating insight about generational trauma gained from personal experience and therapeutic practice.”
—J. M. Debord, author of The Dream Interpretation Dictionary
“Our dreams are one of the most potent ways to receive [our ancestors’] messages.…Linda Schiller’s incredible book Ancestral Dreaming gives us the keys to unlock our most profound inheritance.”
—Dr. Kelly Sullivan Walden, author of Dreamifesting and host of The Kelly Walden Show
“A remarkable journey through ancestral whispers, dreams, wounds, and blessings.”
—Dr. Clare Johnson, author of Elixir of Sleep and The Art of Lucid Dreaming
“Schiller masterfully guides seekers on the path of ancestral healing through dreams.”
—Shelley A. Kaehr, PhD, author of Ancestral Energy Healing
“A fascinating journey through ancestral healing, dreamwork, and the deep connections that bind past, present, and future.”
—Deirdre Barrett, PhD, author of The Committee of Sleep and president of IASD
“Linda possesses a remarkable ability to clearly make sense of complex material.…This book will be an invaluable resource.”
—David Kahn, PhD, psychiatry instructor at Harvard Medical School and executive committee adviser to IASD
“As a fan of Linda’s relaxed, friendly writing, her broad counseling approach, and deep mystic insights, I am blown away by her new book.”
—Stase Michaels, author of Nightmares
“A comprehensive yet intimate approach.”
—Benjamin Stimpson, therapist and author of Ancestral Whispers
“Linda’s latest book helps us sort out ancestral influences to see where they are holding us back and where they are sources of personal strength and resilience.”
—Katherine R. Bell, PhD, host of The Dream Journal podcast
“Schiller provides exercises in support of those who want to begin to walk the path of an ancestrally informed dream-worker…with clarity and compassionate encouragement.”
—Dr. Kimberly Mascaro, author of Dreaming with the Earth-Mind
“Linda invokes a multi-cultural, multi-theoretical foundation with which to evoke our own mythic connections and longings.”
—Julie Leavitt, DMin, BC-DMT, LMHC, professor at Lesley University, Hebrew College, and Hebrew Union College
“Schiller demonstrates how, by recognizing intergenerational impact… readers can confront their fears and break harmful patterns.”
—Victoria Rabinowe, director of DreamingArts Studio in Santa Fe and faculty on the JungPlatform
“A joy to read.…Schiller’s thorough investigation into our connections to the departed builds a method for understanding our own motivations.”
—Walter Berry, author of Drawn into the Dream
“Schiller offers a creative and practical approach to discovering our biological and spiritual ancestors.…This book offers an anchoring sense of presence and hope for deep healing.”
—Tzivia Gover, certified dreamwork professional and author of Dreaming on the Page
“I was particularly excited to learn about Linda Schiller’s spiritual approach to explore ancestors’ dreams because she incorporates the wisdom of the body to explore further layers of meaning.”
—Mag. Johanna Vedral, lecturer at Sigmund Freud University, psychologist, and author of Collage Dream Writing
“If you are interested in how your dreams connect you to your ancestral heritage, Linda Schiller offers a very thorough and practical book on how to do just that.”
—Dr. Leslie Ellis, author of A Clinician’s Guide to Dream Therapy
“Schiller builds a clear and heartfelt bridge between dreaming and ancestral legacy.”
—Jordi Borras, founder of Mondesomnis (“Dream World”), leader of the Dream Integration Program, and psychotherapist
“Schiller’s deep dive into intergenerational healing through dream work isn’t just an outstanding book. It’s a calling.”
—Beth Rontal, LICSW, psychotherapist
“Practical, highly readable, and full of deep wisdom.”
—Ryan Hurd, author of Lucid Talisman and Sleep Paralysis
“Schiller offers a profound roadmap for this healing journey.…[She] is a brilliant guide to help us navigate toward light, integration, and peace.”
—Lauren Z. Schneider, MFT, author of Tarotpy - It’s All in the Cards
About the Author
Linda Yael Schiller, MSW, LICSW is an international speaker and author on dreamwork, trauma, and integrated embodied spiritually, an integrative mind/ body/spiritual psychotherapist and consultant with over forty years’ experience, and a long-term member of The International Association for the Study of Dreams. She is the author of Ancestral Dreaming: Heal Generational Wounds Through Dreamwork (2025), PTSDreams: Transform Your Nightmares from Trauma through Healing Dreamwork (2022), Modern Dreamwork: New Tools for Decoding Your Soul’s Wisdom (2019), and Comprehensive and Integrative Trauma Treatment Workbook (Western Schools, 2010), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Linda is also trained in the body/mind methodologies of EMDR, EFT, TAT, HBLU, Kabbalah healing, Enneagram, hypnotherapy, Somatic Experiencing, Focusing, and Reiki.
As Professor Emeritus at Boston University School of Social Work and Simmons University, she has received awards for her original theory of relational group work, and recognition worldwide for her teaching excellence.
Linda regularly teaches dreamwork and facilitates dream groups on her original dreamwork methods, which include her “Integrated Embodied Dreamwork” approach, her unique “Dreamwork through the Lens of Kabbalah,” which includes the Pardes Method of layers of dream meaning, and her nightmare protocol based on best-practice trauma treatment and Jungian active imagination called “The GAIA Method: A Guided Active Imagination Approach.”
She is a vibrant, warm, and dynamic speaker and has been described as “engaging, articulate, and inspiring.” Linda has been a member of her own dream circle for over forty years. www.lindayaelschiller.com lindayschiller@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/linda.schiller.9461 https://www.instagram.com/lindayschiller22/
Ancestral Dreaming: Heal Generational Wounds Through Dreamwork Copyright © 2025 by Linda Yael Schiller. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd., except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.
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Other Books
by Linda Yael Schiller
Comprehensive and Integrative Trauma Treatment Workbook
Modern Dreamwork
New Tools for Decoding Your Soul’s Wisdom
PTSDreams
Transform Your Nightmares from Trauma through Healing Dreamwork
To my family and dear friends, especially Steve and Sara.
Contents
List of Exercises … xiii
Introduction … 1
Chapter 1: What Are Your Ancestors Telling You or Asking of You? … 13
Chapter 2: Bring Home My Bones … 39
Chapter 3: Epigenetics and Healing the Dreams We Carry from Others … 49
Chapter 4: Respecting Dreamwork and Ancestry Worldwide, and the Unique Work of Ancestry with Adoption … 67
Chapter 5: Griefwork and Ancestors … 85
Chapter 6: The Embodied Nature of Trauma, Nightmares, and Intergenerational Trauma Transmission … 105
Chapter 7: GAIA Method Applied to Ancestral Dreams and Nightmares … 133
Chapter 8: Your Ancestral Tasks: Honoring, Healing, Returning, Remembering … 161
Chapter 9: Conversations, Compassion, and Creativity for Ancestral Healing … 187
Chapter 10: How to Become a Wise and Good Future Ancestor … 201
Acknowledgments … 209
Bibliography … 213
Building Your Genogram … 10
Exercises
Creating a Sapphire-Blue Container of Light … 17
Identifying Old Grudges … 31
Dream Incubation to Connect with Ancestors … 34
Bone-Knowing … 46
Catching the Repeats … 53
Letting Go of the Rocks … 62
Gratitude Practice … 64
Helping Tangled Spirits Over the Threshold … 91
Recognizing and Discerning Your Ancestors … 102
Sapphire Light Boundaries and Your Posse of Protection … 108
Grounding in the Present and Attaching … 112
“I Feel, I Am” … 125
Shaking It Off … 127
Safe Place Imagery … 143
Gathering Your Posse … 144
Sunray Association Circle … 148
Using the GAIA Method … 156
Reaching Out Through All the Realms … 164
Find Your Wise and Well Elder … 174
Protection When Working with Angry Ancestors … 179
Boundary Balancing Technique … 182
Sending Them Back … 183
Apologies and Appreciations … 191
Spiral Healing … 196
Ancestral Meditation … 204
INTRODUCTION
We are the dreams of our ancestors. We carry their lives within our DNA and within our energy bodies. We carry both the shredded remnants of past wounds and the shining grain of sand that created the pearl. If we can inherit trauma, we can inherit strength and wisdom as well. Your ancestors can pass on their gifts, their blessings, and their wisdom through your dreams, and their pain, suffering, and trauma can get transmitted through your nightmares. Sometimes the pain of the past is more than can be transmuted in one lifetime. Sometimes the pearl and the pain have different origins.
Let’s stop here for a minute to reflect: We are the dreams of our ancestors. Deep in your history, your ancestors—your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, as far back as you can imagine and then some—had a dream, an image, a vision of what they hoped for the lives of their descendants. You are that dream, the time-traveled embodiment of their hopes and visions. Therefore, ultimately, this is a book about healing and hope. You and your ancestors have been through wounding and trauma as well as freedom and redemption. As the psychologist Diana Fosha tells us, we are wired for healing.1 So, the trajectory is ultimately that of attaching and connecting, moving forward, repairing, and blessing.
Think of a matryoshka doll. These Russian nesting dolls can also represent who you are and what you encompass: one doll nesting inside the other until you get to your core self. Dreams can take you into the heart of your healing. They help you go forward and backward in time to heal from
1. Fosha, “Wired for Healing.”
Introduction
your personal, ancestral, and global wounds. Then, when combined with dream-guided action steps, you will pass on healing rather than wounding to the next generation.
Barack Obama titled his first book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. In the book, he discusses his multiracial and intergenerational inheritance. Obama wrote that for his grandparents, his admission into Punahou Academy (where he studied from fifth grade through high school graduation) heralded the start of something far-reaching and impressive. It represented an elevation in the family’s status that they took great pains to share widely. With Obama’s admission and eventual graduation, some of his ancestors got to see their dreams come true while they were still living.
Telling the stories of your ancestors and your family lets you know that you are a part of something larger than yourself alone, that your identity has connection and continuity in time and space. It connects you to the web of time and the web of life.
As you begin to tune in to your dreams, notice if your ancestors have been trying to contact you, either through shouts or whispers. Asleep or awake, is there a character or an animal that has been following you around lately, or for several years? This may be your ancestors whispering to you, “Listen. I am still here. Tracking. Watching. Communicating.” Both the common themes and the reoccurring characters in your dreams can give you hints about their messages. For example, if you frequently dream that you are being chased: Are you being chased by someone or something, such as a large dog or monster? Who or what is truly chasing you? If there is fear involved in the chase, is that the equivalent of a shout desperately trying to get your intention? “Wait up, I have something for you!” or “I need you—help me!” or even “Watch out, this grudge is not resolved.” Or are your ancestors whispering? These ancestors may be gentler, but they can still be persistent. Is it a gift they are trying to give you, or an offer or request for healing?
The Dream Journal
If you don’t already have one, purchase a dream journal. This could be a beautiful hardcover journal or a simple spiral notebook. Your dream jour-
nal can be dedicated to your dreams only, or you can use it as a combination of journal writing, drawing, daytime thoughts and synchronicities, and records of your nighttime dreams—just be sure to differentiate between these types of writings so that you remember when and how you learned something.
Keep your dream journal by your bed so that you can begin (or continue) to capture the shouts and whispers that come to you through your dreams. Honor every fragment. No dream is unimportant. No dream is too small. A fragment can be worth a thousand words.
Write the date of each dream on the page. As you fill your dream journal, begin to take notice of common characters, objects, themes, or emotions from dream to dream. Notice the emotional story of the dream: Was it pleasant, unpleasant, or scary? You might take a highlighter and underline or circle the common elements between your dreams. Pay particular attention to dreams that contain family members, past or present. It’s possible that people in your dreams will feel like family, even if they are not yet unidentifiable; make note of that too.
Ancestor Dreams
Recently, I have been having dreams about my ancestors. One vivid dream had to do with making borscht, a hearty Ukrainian beet soup often served with sour cream.
I am learning the borscht recipe from a chef. It seems that we needed a piece of equipment called a shredder to make the soup. The chef helps me locate one. After that, I am in charge of teaching my students how to do it. They aren’t getting it right, so we have to start over from scratch now that we have the shredder.
Since the dream, I have had a new craving for beets. I believe this dream is a message from my Ukrainian ancestors. My grandfather was born in Kiev, and around 1905, he and his family left the Ukraine to escape the pogroms at the turn of the century. Just as a dream has many layers, I wonder how else my ancestors’ experiences affect me today. For example, when I walk alone on dark streets, my heart beats faster. How much of that is ancestral, a remnant of my ancestors’ trauma? How much
Introduction
is neurobiological, with the brain’s encoding for safety? How much is personal, a remnant of an attempted assault when I was in my twenties? How much is cultural, simply being a woman walking alone at night and the relative safety—or lack thereof—in our society?
The very fact that your ancestors survived, sometimes against all odds, is testament to the power of your ancestral dreams. Somewhere in your history, in the near or far past, ancestors whispered to their children, “Survive. Take this amulet, this sacred text, these beads, these words, these candlesticks, this recipe, this clod of earth, and carry our story onward.”
Your history is not only passed on by your biological family, but by anyone who loved, parented, cared for, or influenced you. These individuals created a matrix that contains the seeds of their hopes and dreams for the next generation. The land itself holds memories, pain, and healing as well as the people who walk on it. There is an old Hebrew midrash (story or parable) that each blade of grass that springs forth from the earth has its own personal angel whispering to it, “Grow.”
Recently, I met with my client Daniel, and we spoke about ancestors and legacies. We did some waking embodied dreamwork with the rocks, shells, and other bits of magical stuff I have in my office.2 As he left, I walked out the door with him and scooped up a handful of earth from my garden. I pressed the earth into his hand and said, “Take this. Literal grounding. To hold and remember.” We do not need to continue to carry the heaviest rocks anymore; the earth will help keep us grounded.
The Healing Journey
The purpose of this book is to help you connect with your ancestors in order to heal any intergenerational wounds you may have inherited, to receive the intergenerational blessings and wisdom gifted to you, and to pass on these healed and whole legacies to your children and your chil-
2. Waking embodied dreamwork is an integrated dreamwork approach that uses a variety of somatic, tactile, expressive, and kinesthetic approaches to engage with the dream. The dreamer uses all of their senses, their physical body, and their environment to gain a deeper understanding of the many possible layers in a dream. For example, a spiral shell on the mantle could represent the dream metaphor of “running in circles,” presenting an opportunity to reframe that metaphor from a dream.
Introduction
dren’s children. A powerful way to do this is to tap into the consciousness of your dreams, both your sleep and waking dream states of reverie, trance, guided imagery, meditation, and synchronicity. You can do this with intentionality, with purpose, and with vision: to forgive, to repair, to connect, to heal, and to transmit. You can take your place in the line of your ancestors, knowing that the proverbial buck stops here.
Intergenerational trauma, also called ancestral trauma or legacy burdens, is a concept that is making its way into practices such as Internal Family Systems (IFS), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), developmental studies, somatic therapies, and Hellinger Constellation therapies. Ancestor healing is also receiving more public attention thanks to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) traditional and indigenous communities. The Western world is only just starting to recognize what land-based and Eastern traditions have known for centuries: We have a responsibility to our ancestors and our descendants to offer healing and to accept their wisdom. If your ancestors have not been completely laid to rest, they can inhabit your nights and days. Your task is not only to offer healing to their spirits and send them back to the light, but to discern and differentiate between what is your own work and what is not part of you: not part of your own soul’s mission, not yours to carry. I will return to this concept in more detail in subsequent chapters, for this discernment is a core part of the healing journey.
You have likely passed customs or habits on to your descendants through your parenting, your wisdom, your ideas, your gene pool, your energy field, and your very dreams or nightmares. Sometimes family members can even share dreams as well. One member of my dream circle, Mia, actually dreams her daughter’s dreams some nights. Mia and her daughter frequently dream share in the morning and regularly find elements of their dreams—or even entire dreams—that are practically identical.
Nature, Nurture, or Both?
My wonderful daughter, who was adopted from China at a year old, frequently says that she inherited things from us (her parents) like a certain stoicism in the face of pain or a taste or distaste for certain foods. (For example, loving coffee ice cream from me, and an aversion to bananas
Introduction from her dad.) She uses that word too: “inherited.” Sometimes she is clear that she learned a value, an attitude, or a skill from us, saying, “That’s because I have a therapist for a mom” or “I have a physical therapist for a dad.” Other times the implication is that she did inherit that something in the traditional sense of the word. Is this nature, nurture, or a combination of both?
There is clearly an environmental influence, but my daughter also has a felt sense of inheriting things from our gene pool that she has no literal connection to, in addition to what she inherited in the more traditional sense of the word from her biological parents, grandparents, and ancestors. My daughter has inherited traits like compassion and persistence in the face of obstacles as well as deep connections with her grandparents (our parents) on both sides of the veil. She might be more correct than we know in this. After all, I sent her the red thread of energetic connection across time and space the moment we received the adoption paperwork that she was to be our daughter, known in adoption circles as “the referral.” I maintained that red thread of energetic connection until I held her in my arms, and that process was about the length of time of a “traditional” pregnancy. The opening sentence of my first book on dreams, Modern Dreamwork, is: “Twenty years ago I dreamed my daughter home.” 3 Our energetic genes combined with her biological genes across time and space to create our family.
Tracked By Our Old Dreams
About twenty years ago, I had the following dream.
I am in the desert, leading a long line of women undulating and snaking our way over the sand dunes to answer the call of the drumming coming from a large, low tent. As we approach and then enter the tent, I see the female drummers seated in the center, and the rest of us make our way around them to join in the ceremony.
Fast forward to an International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) conference I attended in 2023. In a workshop, I was inspired by others to bring this dream forward to explore with the group. It still
3. Schiller, Modern Dreamwork, 1.
Introduction
haunted me, and it still had resonance, so I knew that I wasn’t done with it yet. What was my inheritance in this dream? What drum call did I have yet to answer for myself, my ancestors, and my descendants? What was the message from my ancestors that I was supposed to pass on? I knew there were more rituals and ceremonies that I must continue to partake in.
The following year, I attended the 2024 IASD conference, and a harvest festival coincided with the dates of the conference. A group of women spontaneously created a ceremony to honor our ancestors and the land. We gathered with homemade drums, fruit and wine, and song and dance. We erected a canopy of sacred blue light to honor the harvest festival. I get shivers as I reread this—it feels like part of my old dream coming to life.
Guided and interactive dreamwork, as well as dreamwork within a group, can enhance your ability to dream through the healing that you, your family, the world, and the land so need. Not only are two heads better than one, but a group of heads and hearts can enter the dream space together and enlarge the vision and the learnings. When you connect with others in shared humanity and the conjoint power found in deep meditation, prayer, energy work, and dreamwork, the result is greater than the sum of its parts. Your dreams are your own sacred text, your personal road map, that can connect you with sacred scriptures of your own heritage.
The dream I had was connected, at least in part, to bringing ways of feminine knowledge and wisdom traditions forward. Bringing forth dreamwork, ritual, and ceremony is not necessarily linear or logical. Somehow, this dream connected me with my roots, those in the Ukraine, the Netherlands, Austria, and the Middle East specifically. The desert has always spoken loudly to me across time and space.
Noted dreamer, shamanic practitioner, and author Robert Moss teaches that there are threefold paths of the ancestors: the ancestors of your bloodlines, of the lands where you live and travel, and of your spiritual lineages. The land itself is an ancestor too—Gaia herself, the living sentient land—all the way back to the origin stories of most world traditions.
We know that unresolved issues from an individual’s or collective’s past can become their destiny.4 The past tends to repeat itself until we have
4. Hübl, Healing Collective Trauma
the courage to face it together. Story coach and somatic writing developer Tanya Taylor Rubinstein continues this thread forward: Each of us can become a great ancestor for our future lineage. In doing so, you will not only heal your own ancestral line but also contribute to the healing of humanity. One of my dream circle friends is named Marcia. One day, the group examined a dream of hers that included her deceased mom as well as her daughter and new granddaughter. Afterward, Marcia told us that she felt even more of a responsibility to be a good ancestor.
You can reach out to your ancestors in your dreams. This usually refers to departed ancestors, but as we have expanded the meaning of the word, you can also reach out to the land and to your actual or potential descendants now and in the future. You can pray or direct thoughts and intentions to general or specific ancestors. If you send healing to all your relations, who comes through to you? You may encounter the known or the unknown: a lineage you were aware of, or a past that you did not yet know of consciously.
Working with others to complete an uncompleted action as indicated by your dream adds the glue of connection to the healing process. Healing ripples forward and backward in time, to your ancestors and to your descendants. Soul energy is not bound by time or space, so when you heal an ancestral soul wound, the love and compassion and forgiveness that you give to yourself or to others can echo throughout generations. It is always “now” in a dreamscape, never yesterday or tomorrow. Likewise, it is always now in sacred time as well as the time of the soul.
What to Expect
In chapter 1, I will examine the six calls your ancestors may be using to try to get through to you, via both shouts and whispers:
1. “I am still here, and you are not alone.”
2. “Take these gifts, blessings, or apologies.”
3. “Let me help, heal, or warn you.”
4. “Please, please help and heal me; I am still suffering.”
5. “Watch out: This old grudge has not yet been resolved.”
6. “Carry on my name and gifts to your children and your children’s children. Remember.”
I will also examine the continuum of consciousness and how the shouts and whispers of your ancestors may come through at any of these levels.
Chapter 2 will explore the literal, metaphorical, and spiritual meanings of bones, marrow, and stem cells in dreamwork and in relationship to your ancestors. I will share some of the links between life and afterlife that we can learn by examining our bone memories.
Chapter 3 will explore epigenetics, how the DNA strands of previous generations get passed down to us, and how events in the lives of your ancestors can affect your very DNA through a process called methylation.
Chapter 4 looks at how the relationship between ancestors and dream messages is considered in several traditions. This chapter also explores the unique circumstances of ancestry and adoption.
Chapter 5 will examine the nature of grieving you may have with various ancestors. Grief has many forms: You may have simple or complicated grief. You may miss some beloveds greatly, or just a little. You may be relieved someone is gone. You may have never met the ancestor who has passed. All this and more influences your relationship with your ancestors. Things that can help you find closure and peace will be addressed here.
Chapter 6 will provide an overview of some current body-based trauma treatments as they relate to ancestral work. The nature of inherited and embodied trauma for yourself and your ancestors will be examined, and I will discuss healing body, mind, heart, and spirit through ancestral waking and sleeping dreamwork.
Chapter 7 outlines the GAIA method, the Guided Active Imagination Approach I have developed. The GAIA method forms one of the cornerstones of safe, interactive dreamwork with nightmares and bad dreams. I will also share how to apply this method to intergenerational trauma and healing.
Chapters 8, 9, and 10 will provide a deeper dive into additional methods, resources, rituals, and dreamwork for healing intergenerational traumas, honoring the ancestors, and accessing your legacy gifts.
Each chapter includes multiple exercises that allow you to follow by example, practice on your own, and heal from within.
Building Your Genogram
A genogram is a pictorial representation of a family tree. Your genogram will allow you to keep track of who’s who in your family, and you may see familial patterns in this visual format. I recommend referencing the image provided here to create your own genogram. If you prefer to make a genogram digitally, there are many templates online that you can use.
1. Begin by drawing a symbol for yourself. Typically, squares represent men and circles represent women, though there are numerous other identity symbols that can be found online. Symbols can also be adapted to fit your needs so long as the meaning is clear to you.
2. Once you have drawn yourself, incorporate other generations of your family. If family members are older than you, they will go above your symbol, while younger generations members will come below. Members of the same generation should be parallel to each other. Here are some other basic genogram tips:
• Partnered couples are linked with a horizontal line. A slash on the horizontal line between two parents indicates a divorce or separation. A dotted horizontal line represents the parties are partnered but not married.
• Offspring are connected via vertical lines that extend from the horizontal line linking their parents.
• An X over a square or circle indicates the individual is deceased.
• A triangle indicates an impending birth or unknown gender. If there is an X over the triangle, it indicates a miscarriage or stillbirth.
Grandmother
Grandfather
Grandmother
Mother Uncle Aunt
Sister
Brother- in-law
Niece
Nephew
Grandfather
Uncle Father
Uncle Aunt
Cousin
Brother Sister- in-law
Partner You Daughter Son
Sample
Genogram
3. As you link symbols on your genogram, write in the names and ages of family members. If a family member was adopted, write in the age they were when they were adopted and where they were adopted from. Add death dates and causes of death for family members who are no longer alive. See how many generations of your family tree you can represent in your genogram, including countries of origin as far back as you can.
4. Then, take your genogram a step further by adding any relevant information underneath family member’s names. For example, you may wish to write their profession, existing medical conditions, mental health history, history of traumatic events, or special skills or gifts.
As you make your way through this book, you will be able to add even more information to your genogram, which will help you see the patterns in your family tree more clearly. Return to your genogram to fill out your ancestral history as it emerges.
ONE
WHAT ARE YOUR ANCESTORS TELLING YOU OR ASKING OF YOU?
A family is essentially a field of stories, each intricately connected. Death does not sever the connection; rather, the story expands as it continues unwinding inter-dimensionally.…According to the Old Ones…time is a weave, a DNA spiral moving within, through us, and around us. It is always changing.
—Joy Harjo, Poet Warrior
How do your ancestors get your attention: through shouts or through whispers? By way of your dreams or nightmares, or in your waking life? Both Buddhist philosophy and a children’s nursery rhyme tell us that “life is but a dream.” For some dreams, we are asleep, and for others we are awake: Waking dreams include noticing signs we may have missed before, including uncanny coincidences, déjà vu, and prescient experiences of knowing something before it happens.
Your ancestors may come to you unasked, or you may intentionally call or invoke them; we will look at both sides of this coin in this chapter. When you do hear from your ancestors, they may whisper so softly that you need to stop, tune in, and pay attention to hear them, or they may shout so loudly—especially if they are showing up in your nightmares— that your natural tendency is to intentionally avoid their messages, almost like putting your fingers in your ears and saying, “La, la, la” so as not to hear. These messages can be intense; I don’t blame you. But your ancestors’ messages won’t go away until you stop and listen so that you can respond to their request.
According to a 2023 study, 53 percent of Americans report connections with their ancestors who have departed, most of them through their dreams.5 In addition to dream visits and connections, some reported hearing their ancestor’s voice inside their head while awake. Others experienced a “felt sense” in their bodies. These connections are sometimes simply a felt presence of the ancestor in the room or vicinity. Sometimes our ancestors show up as themselves in our dreams, and sometimes they are symbolized, hidden, or disguised as metaphor. In that case, we must then decode their messages and true identities.
Connections with your ancestors can come through any of your senses and may involve words, emotions, images, or an experiential knowing. You are likely already connected with some of your ancestral legacy, but one of the signs of deep work in the spiritual or energetic realm is the “aha” of a surprise, the frisson of an embodied knowing: “Oh, I didn’t know that before” or “I sort of knew that, but I wasn’t sure until now.”
As you will see in this chapter, you may receive messages from your ancestors during any of the states of consciousness.
The Continuum of Consciousness
We all experience a continuum of consciousness that ranges from wide awake to sound asleep and beyond. Held within these end points are the in-between states in which we have access to other ways of knowing.
In the first five stages, from wide awake to chemically altered, we retain various levels of consciousness or awareness with the waking world. These are in the states in which you may have waking dreamish experiences, known as uncanny coincidences or, in Jungian terms, synchronicities. It has also been called a “glitch in the matrix” of waking consciousness.
The middle stage of the hypnopompic or hypnogogic zones refer to being in-between waking and sleeping, either as you are falling asleep or as you gradually awaken. In the hypnopompic and hypnogogic zones, you retain a dual awareness of both the waking and sleeping worlds. Don’t neglect what comes through to you in these in-between states, where the
5. Tevington and Corichi, “Many Americans Report Interacting with Dead Relatives in Dreams or Other Ways.”
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veil between worlds is thinner. These images and scenes are dreams too, and they can be unpacked just as a dream can be. In other words, a dream in this in-between state is still a dream.
fully wide awake reverie or day dreaming guided imagery
chemically altered state (psychadelics or medications)
deep REM sleep
hypnopompic or hypnogogic zones
lucid dreaming sleep (awareness inside of dream)
Continuum of Consciousness
trance or hypnotic state (induced or spontaneous)
light sleep (non-REM)
transcendent and/or spiritual sleep state
In the deeper stages of sleep, we do not retain active awareness of what is happening in the outside world unless it permeates the dream world in some unusual way. For example, I once dreamt that I was in an earthquake, an unusual dream for me. When I awoke, I discovered that a jackhammer was tearing up the street in front of my house, and the sound and vibration had permeated my waking/sleep barrier in symbolic form as an earthquake.
Lucid dreaming has its own unique place in dreams. In this state, the individual is sound asleep and dreaming, but at the same time, they are aware they are having a dream. This skill can be acquired with practice; I recommend researching lucid dreaming exercises. Lucid dreaming can also happen spontaneously.
We move in and through endless spirals of time and place, not only in a straight line from past to future, which is easier for us to picture, but also in spirals that are contained within us. When the veil between worlds is thinner—either because of grief or loss, or because you are straddling the threshold of waking and sleeping—you can more easily access your
departed loved ones and any resources you may need to heal and finish their journeys.
Another example of in-betweenness was when my friend Bob’s father died but had not yet been buried. Bob described to me his in-between state of feeling like time had stopped, that he was treading water, and the ongoing connection with his dad felt fragile and fuzzy. Still there, and yet not there. He anticipated a greater clarity once his father’s body was buried and it was “clearer” as to which world he was in. His dad was between worlds in multiple senses of meaning. I agreed with Bob that the clarity in their relationship would return once his dad was “settled” into his new reality.
The Six Ancestral Calls
I have identified six types of messages that people tend to receive from their ancestors.
1. “I am still here, and you are not alone.”
2. “Take these gifts, blessings, or apologies.”
3. “Let me help, heal, or warn you.”
4. “Please, please help and heal me; I am still suffering.”
5. “Watch out: This old grudge has not yet been resolved.”
6. “Carry on my name and gifts to your children and your children’s children. Remember.”
Remember that messages may come through in multiple layers of consciousness including while asleep, while in reverie states, or out-of-theblue in waking consciousness. Each type of call, be it a shout or a whisper, may require a different kind of response. Some of these calls ask that we listen and respond, others ask us to do something, and still others make demands.
The Blue Container of Safety and Light
Before you go any further, I want to teach you how to create a safe and protective container in which you can explore your ancestors’ shouts and whispers. This is essential for safe, effective dreamwork.
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Some of your ancestral connections will be lovely blessings full of guidance. Some will be difficult, painful, or heartbreaking. Whether you know or suspect that your ancestors are still hurting, whether you fear they may hurt you in some way, or just for good, protected dreamwork, create a container of safety and light. Then, you will be better protected from the shouts and hear the whispers more clearly.
Dreams are made in large part from energy, and energy is made from light. Ancestral beings are part of this light. We come from light before we are born and return to it after death. When you dream, you may travel to realms you can’t access while awake and may even have encounters with ancestors in this liminal space. That is why it is important to create a container of safety and light before beginning dreamwork.
To create your container, begin by visualizing a blue light. Lucid dreamers advise us to look for the blue light when we feel that we are surrounded by darkness or are in the void. The color blue indicates that we are protected, loved, and seen and has numerous spiritual connotations throughout history.6 For millennia, deities have been depicted with blue faces, and Jesus’s mother Mary was clothed in blue and white robes. Colette AboulkerMuscat, the pioneer of Kabbalistic dreamwork, focused on the healing power of dreams and dream imagery, and she believed sapphire was the color of spirit and should be used especially for dreaming, visioning, and guided imagery. Colette and her student Catherine Shainberg created a version of the following exercise to keep readers safe and grounded while exploring other realms and connecting with those beyond this time and place.7
EXERCISE
Creating a Sapphire-Blue Container of Light
I encourage you to intentionally create a container of light any time you are going to be delving into deep dreamwork or connecting with your ancestors. Always use this method when connecting with or calling upon ancestors who are in pain, ancestors
6. Johnson, Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Lucid Dreaming; Waggoner, Lucid Dreaming.
7. Shainberg, The Kabbalah of Light, xviii, 9, 87.
who are struggling, or ancestors who want something from you. This method will help you keep your boundaries intact as you do your work. Eventually, you can share your blue light container with ancestors who need healing when the time comes.
1. Quiet your body and mind. Plant your feet on the ground, barefoot if possible. In this moment, you are connecting with your first ancestor, Mother Earth.
2. Close your eyes and imagine a line coming down from the heavens, through the crown of your head, and down through your body. Ground this plumb line through the soles of your feet into the earth, connecting above and below. Bring awareness of your body into the present with your breathing.
3. Next, take a deep breath through your nose, inhaling slowly to the count of four. Exhale slowly to the count of eight through your mouth, pursing your lips like you are blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Do this three times to put yourself into a light trance state.
4. Then, visualize and feel yourself surrounded by an eggshaped container of sapphire light. If this color doesn’t work for you, find the color and shade of safety and protection that feels just right. Your blue light may come through as turquoise, sapphire, teal, aquamarine, azure, opalescent, or crystal blue. Let yourself be enveloped by this light.
Message One: “I Am Still Here, and You Are Not Alone.”
Perhaps the most ubiquitous message from the ancestors is that the connection across time and space does not end with death. Cultures and traditions around the globe have spoken with, honored, and connected with their dearly departed. For example, on Día de los Muertos (“Day of the Dead”) in Mexico, some families have picnics in graveyards to honor and spend time with the ancestors. In China, many homes have an altar dedi-
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cated to their ancestors in a place of honor in the home; the ancestors may be offered food and drink. At Jewish cemeteries, small stones are placed on graves as physical signs that they have been visited by loved ones. The ancestors talk to us too, via words or signs or dreams.
One of the most comforting dreams to have after the loss of a loved one is a visitation dream. There is a vividness, a numinous quality to these dream visits that is qualitatively different than a dream about the relative. A dream about a relative may be something like “My mom was a character in my dream last night” or “There was a woman with red hair who was not really my mom but was my mother in the dream.” However, a dream visitation often includes a felt sense of the spirit of the departed. Many dreamers hear their loved one’s voice as if in real time, feel their touch, or sense their presence in a way that is immensely comforting. It is as if their loved one is saying, “I am here. You are not alone.”
When my client Ellen’s beloved cat died, she told me that she woke from a dream feeling him sitting right on her chest, purring. Margarite said that she turned in her dream-sleep and felt her deceased husband gently kiss her cheek. My friend Gwen’s sister has dreamt of their departed mother every night for over thirty years; it is a comfort to her. Shaman and dreamer Robert Moss states that not only do we dream of our departed, but they dream of us as well, and they try to reach us through our dreams.8 The message or information they have for us can vary, hence the different types of callings.
Twenty-plus years after his death, my stepfather Bud is still very present for me. I hear his voice when I ask him a question in my waking dreamtime, and sometimes spontaneously in a nighttime dream as well. Since his death, we’ve joked that he married my mom both to be her husband and because he was meant to be a mentor and wisdom guide for me. He was my first reader for all my professional articles when I taught at Boston University (he was a professor himself) and was full of life and light.
For some reason, my stepfather Bud has the ability to traverse the veil between worlds with me more easily than my other ancestors. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I was with him at the hospital in his final days. He could communicate with us only by blinking his eyes purposefully
8. Moss, “Dreaming with the Departed.”
when we asked him to let us know that he could hear us or asked if he was enjoying our singing to him. In this way, Bud and I established a nonverbal and unordinary form of communication before he passed on, when he was on the threshold between worlds. I was blessed to be able to say goodbye one final time just hours before he died, and I remember encouraging him to let go. As I reflect on our continued connection, this explanation for his availability even after death feels right.
Message Two: “Take These Gifts, Blessings, or Apologies.”
Gifts and blessings can come from your ancestors in many ways. They may come in the form of a gesture, an object, in words, or in actions. When you make an ongoing place for your ancestors in your life, you are more likely to notice their offerings.
In your dreams, have you noticed a figure that seems numinous in some way? Perhaps they were glowing or larger than life. Whether you recognized the figure as a relative or not, they may have been an ancestor showing up with a gift or blessing for you. Sometimes dreams make it quite clear that a gift is being offered; other times, you may need to unpack and explore the dream to find a gift.
My colleague Gabrielle was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I can only imagine how difficult that must have been, especially given the isolation many of us struggled with during the pandemic. In addition to receiving medical care, Gabrielle prayed and dreamed for her healing. She told me that one morning she woke up feeling the loving presence of her ancestors nearby. Gabrielle’s ancestors accompanied her through the dream state, into the hypnopompic in-between zone, and then into her waking state, and they offered her an additional name: Ariella, which means “Lioness of God.”
Having the loving support of her ancestors helped Gabrielle on her journey, and she began to live up to new soul-name. Gabrielle, which means “Strength of God,” infused her given name with her new Lioness self. Her name-gift of Lioness-Strength was a powerful gift from her ancestors that helped her through as she joined her present and her future. It was the
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beginning of a spiritual journey that continues to this day—Gabrielle recently celebrated her four-year anniversary of being cancer-free.
Josh dreamed that Spock from Star Trek showed up in his dream and made the Vulcan salute with his hands, which means “live long and prosper.” This gesture had special meaning for Josh, as he knew it to be a blessing—the inspiration for this gesture was a Hebrew benediction. Leonard Nimoy (the actor who played Spock) was born in Boston, but his parents were from a village in the Ukraine. As a boy, Nimoy attended a service at an Orthodox Jewish Synagogue and witnessed a rabbi using this symbol to bless the congregation. Years later, when Nimoy felt that his character, Spock, needed to make a “greeting gesture,” he chose the gesture he had seen at the synagogue about twenty-five years prior.9 The Vulcan salute went on to become a gesture associated with Star Trek, but Nimoy never forgot its origins. “This is the shape of the letter shin,” Nimoy said in a 2013 interview, making the famous Vulcan salute.10 The Hebrew letter shin, he noted, is the first letter in several Hebrew words, including Shaddai (a name for God), shalom (the word for hello, goodbye, and peace) and Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God, the indwelling presence. Josh, who grew up Jewish, immediately resonated with this blessing, as his relatives too were originally from the Ukraine, and as a big sci-fi fan, he had lived with Mr. Spock since his childhood.
Sometimes, however, a dream’s gift or blessing is less obvious. It may be disguised as something or someone chasing you, or as a warning of impending danger of some sort. Your initial response might to be run and hide instead of to receive. But once you are safe and protected within the dream itself (or afterward, in your waking dreamwork), you can then discover what the blessing or gift is. We will talk more about how to do this in chapter 7.
My friend Molly told me about a powerful dream her grandmother Ruchel had while she was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. Ruchel still planned to fast for Yom Kippur, the fasting day of atonement, when prayers asking for forgiveness and a fresh start in the new year are said.
9. Nimoy, “How Leonard Nimoy’s Jewish Roots Inspired the Vulcan Salute.” 10. Ohlheiser, “The Jewish Roots of Leonard Nimoy and ‘Live Long and Prosper.’”
The night before the fast, Ruchel had a dream in which she experienced a very clear visit from her departed grandfather. He said to her, “Don’t fast! You are already starving, and you need to survive. Eat as much as you can every day and survive this place. Live.” Ruchel followed her grandfather’s instructions and ate the next day. She survived, and now her descendants include children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Following her ancestor’s guidance aided not only Ruchel’s own survival, it ensured the survival of her family line as well.
Ancestral gifts can also be hidden inside a nightmare. In my book PTSDreams, Dina had a nightmare in which she was being chased by a giant around an old-fashioned village.11 At one point in the dream, Dina heard a voice advising her to turn around and look into the eyes of the giant. When she did, she found that rather than being threatening, his eyes were kind, and then the giant picked her up and danced with her. The dream that began as a nightmare shifted, and it ended with Dina feeling relieved and safe.
When I revisit this dream now in the context of ancestral blessings and gifts, I find new meaning. Dina’s ancestors escaped the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. She is alive today because her family members escaped a truly terrifying real-world giant. Growing up in America in the fifties and sixties, Dina and her siblings did not have to run for their lives, but Dina inherited the intense felt-sense memories of her mother and other family members who felt distress, fear, and panic.
The ancestral gifts in Dina’s dream showed up in two ways: One, this dream was a message to stop and listen to the Voice when it spoke to her, and two, it was a reminder to dance. Even inside the dream, Dina was able to stop and listen to the Divine Voice advising her that she didn’t need to run from this giant. Rather, the Voice conveyed that it was safe for Dina to stop and dance with this larger-than-life being.
Today, Dina is both a spiritual director and a dance choreographer. Her most recent choreography vividly depicts her mother’s journey from the dangers across the Atlantic to safer harbors in the new world. At age ninety, her mother was in the audience during the debut performance. Addition11. Schiller, PTSDreams, 89.
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ally, Dina just performed in a multimedia dance and performance-art piece on grief and healing called “Under the Canopy.” When we join in community under the canopy of our shared grief and are wrapped in love, we heal. Dina’s gifts keep going forward and backward in time.
A dream’s gift or blessing may also be in the form of a long-awaited apology. Your ancestor may have passed before you reconciled your differences, which could leave you feeling cut off or angry at words that were said or actions that were taken. The gift in this message might be a healing apology or making amends, and it can go both ways. You can make peace with the departed even after they have gone, so don’t neglect this opportunity. You can finish up your unfinished business on the other side of the veil if necessary. It is never too late to say, “I’m sorry. I forgive you. I do love you.” Once you understand the context for another’s actions, including the hurtful ones, through your own healing work, it is easier to have compassion for them and their missteps in life.
Message Three: “Let Me Help, Heal, or Warn You.”
In this type of message, your ancestors are actively trying to get a message to you in order to help you or warn you of something. Are you listening? Sometimes, these messages are hidden in dreams that feel negative or scary; a hurt or needy ancestor may be aggressive in their requests or demands. In many cases, this message is intense because it is your ancestor’s way of grabbing your attention. Particularly if you are confused or struggling with a dilemma in your life, they may simply be trying to help or offer advice. Are you the type who is easily receptive to offers of assistance, or are you a loner, an “I can do it myself, thank you very much” type? Although I am not a loner, when I was in my twenties I had to learn how to say “Yes, thank you” when I was offered help. One incident has stuck with me: While my then-boyfriend was over at my house, my roommate offered to help me with something. I declined her offer because I didn’t really need the help. My boyfriend said to me, “Yael, she wants to help you. Don’t deny her the gift of helping, whether you really require it or not.” This was an important life lesson for me, as the daughter of a single mother who was taught the importance of being independent.
What does it take to get your attention or for you to accept an offer of help? For some, this is not a problem at all; they easily accept and simply say thank you when help is offered. However, if you have a difficult time asking for and receiving help, chances are that you have been frequented by a figure—known or unknown—in your dreams for quite some time. In these dreams, an ancestor, a power animal, or a divine being will show up. You can tune in to this dream figure and ask them what message they have, or once you have woken up, you can reflect on this in your journal by asking, “What did they come to tell me or help me with?” See what answers you can find. Perhaps you have already identified an area of your life where you need advice or assistance, or you may have a vague sense of something not quite right that your ancestors could help with.
Parents, particularly of teens or young adults, know that our kiddos would rather accept advice from almost anyone else. This potential tug of war is a normal, albeit infuriating, developmental stage. Luckily for them and for us, we can direct them to ask their dreams or grandparents (alive or dead) what they advise. In my experience, it’s as good as nocturnal therapy—and free to boot! In my house, when my daughter has a dilemma that I can’t really help her with, or when I don’t want to be the one making the decision on her behalf, or when she has already ignored my advice, I suggest that she ask her grandmothers. She was close with both of them. At this point in time, both have died. My daughter will ask her grandmothers for assistance or dream on the dilemma, known as dream incubation; sometimes I think she just channels. Afterward, she frequently tells me who advised her: Gramma Inez or Gramma Mimi. I love that this is second nature in my home. Sometimes both of her grandmothers give her the same advice, and they really do give her sound advice that I can get behind! Where does the advice actually come from? In the end, it doesn’t matter; my daughter gets to have self-agency, figure things out, and connect with her grandmothers in the process.
Sometimes departed loved ones send messages with multilayered meanings. My client Jennie’s brother died a few years ago after a long struggle with substance abuse. He left behind a five-year-old child, Tommy. Tommy’s mother could not reliably care for him, so recently Jennie was granted official custody of her nephew. A few days later, she had this dream.
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My brother shows up in my dream and says to me, “I love you.”
I say back to him, “What are you doing? You don’t usually get all mushy like this.”
He replies, “If I tell you that I love you, then you have to say it back to me, and then I get to hear you say it to me too.”
Wow. After a short discussion, we both agreed that this was a visit; it had all the vividness and immediacy associated with a visitation. We talked about how this healing of spoken love—which all too often went unspoken in her family—goes forward and backward in time and space. It healed her brother, who needed to both speak love and hear it; to Jennie, who received the visit and the message; and on to the next generation. When Jennie shared the dream with Tommy, he replied, “That’s my dad. Tell him I love him too.”
This dream carried the message “Let me help/heal you,” when an ancestor asks for help in their own healing or shares messages that can be passed down to our descendants.
Departed loved ones can also offer some very concrete advice. Julie’s father died over ten years ago, but he remained a vital presence in her life. She spoke with him regularly and felt comforted and warmed by his presence. One day, Julie’s mother began having terrible headaches. Julie took her to doctor after doctor, where she had scan after scan and tried multiple medications, all to no avail. Julie began to despair about finding a solution to her mother’s chronic pain. One day, she left her mother in the bedroom, went into the kitchen, and called out to her father in frustration, asking him for any wisdom or guidance he could offer. She underscored the importance of the message by saying to him, “And I need it to be crystal clear. And really, really soon.” Seconds later, her mother crept out of the bedroom, leaned against the doorjamb, and asked, “Do you think it could be my eyes?” Her father answered Julie’s plea for help through her mother, the one who needed the help, clear as a bell and within seconds.
Julie realized that the one doctor she had not yet thought to consult was an ophthalmologist. She made an appointment for her mother as soon as possible. After the examination, the doctor said, “Most of the time I don’t see people with this condition until after they are already blind.
You caught it just in time.” Julie’s mother had some type of inflammation pressing on nerves connected to her eyes, and this was causing the terrible headaches. A regiment of strong anti-inflammatory medication was prescribed, and the headaches resolved. Julie’s mother retained her eyesight until her death several years later.
Message Four: “Please, Please Help and Heal Me; I Am Still Suffering.”
This message means the ancestors need something from us. They suffered in some way and left something undone, unresolved, or unhealed when they died. Therefore, they were not able to complete their journey to the other side of the veil in peace. If you consider intergenerational trauma— trauma that is passed down from generation to generation—this is also the realm of unfinished business, loss, old hurts, and wounds that you may be carrying that are not actually your own. The pleas or cries for help may come to you in your dreams in the form of repetitive images or themes. These may be themes of being chased, suffering, feeling trapped, or being trapped. There may be cutoffs or family disconnections that have long outlived their original source. Ancestors may show up in your dreams or your life with heartbreaking requests or pleas, beseeching demands, and even threats: “You are my last chance. You have to help me. If you don’t, I will curse you…” Always take extra care when engaging with these ancestors. Whether those in your dreams are known or unknown to you, a first step is to ask yourself who they are in your life. Are they a relative that you recognize or a character that is representing a relative? Are there patterns in your dreams (or in your waking life, for that matter) that are unhealthy, that interfere with you leading a peaceful and well-connected life? These patterns can permeate both your waking and sleeping life. If you are carrying something that is not actually from your own life, your ancestors may ask for or demand some form of resolution from the other side of the veil. These may be the shouts like “Help me! I am hurting! I am still trapped!” Ancestral wounds, also known as family legacy burdens in Internal Family Systems therapy, can be passed down from generation to generation until someone recognizes, names, and takes action to
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stop and change the pattern. I will teach you how to release these souls as part of your dreamwork.
You may be hearing the cries of pain and suffering from ancestors who were enslaved, victimized, displaced, marginalized, wounded, or massacred. You may be getting the guilt or self-righteousness from those who oppressed others. One member of my dream circle, Samantha, had ancestors who were enslavers in the South before the Civil War. For quite some time, her dreams contained themes of making amends for the actions of her grandparents and great-grandparents. These themes usually showed up as metaphor: One dream contained images from the game Go, with its little black and white pieces; another dream showcased the zodiac sign Libra holding the scales of justice. Samantha’s dream-to-life action steps involved becoming an activist for social justice causes. Eventually, the dreams ceased as Samantha worked to balance the scales in her daily life.
Ancestral shouts and whispers can enter your awareness through dreams, language patterns, relationship styles, and synchronicities and uncanny coincidences in daily life. Even after you recognize them for what they are, these dreams can continue to haunt you until you have taken some steps to heal the legacies of pain, fear, abandonment, or suffering. The good news is that even if the source of the nightmare isn’t your own life, you can be part of the healing trajectory for both your ancestors and your descendants. Rather than passing on trauma, you can pass on healing.
My colleague David had several dreams set in Bolechow, a city in the Ukraine that his ancestors emigrated from. The series of dreams took place over a four-year span, all connected to the pogroms and the Nazi Holocaust his ancestors survived. In the following dream, even though David himself is injured, he helps a woman in need, most likely a greatgreat-grandmother.
My right leg is hurt, but not bad. I have a bit of a limp. I have crutches that belong to a childhood friend. At first, they are too tall for me, but I adjust the angle of them and then they work. They even seem to shrink to my height after this. I am on a terrace overlooking a square— a courtyard. It is Bolechow as I have seen it recently on a visit.
There are some stairs in front of me. They are solid, like concrete/metal stairs that are open in the back. I hear that a woman up there needs help. I forget about my bad leg and quickly run up there. With me now is another woman and two men, plus the woman that needs help.
The woman that needs help is very large. She has shoulder-length blonde hair. She needs to be carried down. I know how to do this, though I need someone on the other side of her. I reach my right arm around her neck and my left arm under her left knee. With another man on the other side doing the same, we can carry her without too much difficulty. They may be paramedics, and I act like them, knowing what to do. I think at least three of us end up carrying her, which is a little awkward, but I’m in a good position. Then we find out there is an elevator, so we don’t have to carry her down the stairs.
I am now carrying the woman outside with one of the men. We walk toward an open, flat, hard-packed dirt area that has fences around it. It is some sort of international military place, which I assume has medical staff and equipment. There are two guards that look like a combination of police officers and soldiers. The one in charge tells us to put the woman down. The other(s) quickly set her down, but I gently lay her head down on the ground before stepping aside.
Some central elements in this dream include the setting, the characters, and the goal of helping the injured. The dream is set in Bolechow, a city David’s ancestors lived in. David himself is injured, but he quickly rallies to help someone else in need—an archetypal wounded healer motif. David’s own assistive devices, the crutches, magically conform to his needs so that he can carry on with his mission. He goes upstairs to help the injured woman. The word up can have many associations, depending on the dreamer, but one can be up to other realms, beyond the veil that separates worlds. David can’t do it alone, however, and several allies assist him, a community of caregivers. His dreaming self even supplied him with paramedics! The injured woman is large. Perhaps this blonde from the Ukraine is a symbol of the large number of relatives David lost in the pogroms? They succeed in getting her out (out of the building, out of the country) and take her somewhere she can get medical care. I find it noteworthy that at
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the end of the dream, David gently lowers the woman’s head, providing care and compassion at the end of his time with her.
After about four years of these kinds of dreams, it seemed that David had resolved his family history sufficiently through his own dreamwork and personal healing, and he gave and received healing to his ancestors who suffered. His dreams then shifted. David began to dream about other massive traumas of death and displacement, including the Rwandan genocide and the genocide of Indigenous peoples. It seems that David’s soul has chosen or been chosen for this as part of his life mission. He has since written about and lectured on these dream patterns.
Message Five: “Watch Out: This Old Grudge Has Not Yet Been Resolved.”
When this dream message comes through, you may want to set some extra boundaries and take extra protections so that you don’t take on the negative energies of the ancestor looking for revenge. Remember, their vendetta or grudge is not yours, but you may be needed to help resolve it so everyone can move on. If an angry ancestor comes through in your waking or sleeping dreamtime, I recommend doubling the strength or thickness of your blue container of light, adding an additional color or colors, and adding the Boundary Balance of tapping on your sternum as you invoke protection. Chapter 8 has a detailed protocol for this.
There is a difference between an ancestor who comes through in a dream needing help (or offering you help) and one who is stuck on an old grudge or in a revenge pattern. These ancestors will try to wrest something from you. The previous message of “Help me, I am still suffering” is different than “I am still enraged, and you have to finish the job for me.” This type of inheritance may include a history of violence, shunning, scapegoating, or banishment; someone was hurt or hurt others, and they are still upset about it. We know that hurt people hurt people, and it is important to keep that message from being passed down.
This desire for revenge is not yours to carry out, and acting on it may serve to perpetuate the enmity. These are ancestors who died without resolving their anger or grief, and they are in effect “haunting” you with their requests or demands for you to finish their work. Think of the infamous
feuds between the Hatfields and McCoys, or families during the Civil War who were divided between the North and the South (some to this day), or unexplained cutoffs in your own family. Shakespeare wrote about this too: The generational feud between the Capulets and the Montagues ultimately led to the deaths of both Romeo and Juliet before their families could resolve their conflict.
The desire for revenge freezes grief. Long-standing personal feuds and strife block the flow of grief and keep people stuck in an endless loop of frozen pain. Unmetabolized grief often transforms into some form of accusatory blame or even violence. When unresolved negative emotions get stuck and are carried beyond the grave, they can morph into rage and revenge for real or imagined wrongs. Your job, then, is not to continue to act out this family saga, but to find a way to recognize and balance the wrongs and hurts so you can send the ancestral spirits back to the light, where they can finally rest and be healed.
One of my favorite book titles is It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle. In this book, Mark Wolynn describes this pattern of intergenerational inheritances as both the “family body” and the “family mind.” 12 Wolynn cites German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger, the founder of Constellation Work, as evidence that we share a family consciousness with those who came before us.13 This family consciousness is often so embedded in the unconscious mind that we are unaware of it.
Constellation Work, which is a form of psychodrama, helps people reenact and embody old patterns that need to be healed. Psychodrama enactments allow us to create scenes, like scenes in a play, that depict the issue or dilemma we are struggling with. This work is often done with a group of people, each of whom take a different role in a dream scene; this approach is frequently used in dream circles. Constellation Work allows us to embody every being, every animal, and each object or landscape in a dream and speak as if from their voice. As we enliven these components, it gives us even more perspective and information.
12. Wolynn, It Didn’t Start with You, 25, 40.
13. Wolynn, It Didn’t Start with You, 44–45.
EXERCISE
Identifying Old Grudges
This exercise will be particularly useful for you if you are experiencing nightmares or upsetting dreams, or if you are aware of cut-offs in your family, especially those that are not fully explained. It is crucial to keep yourself safe and separated when you put your attention on this information.
Before you begin the exercise, if you know of family cutoffs, take some time to ask your living relatives about any grudge-holding ancestors. What was their life like? In particular, does your living relative know what unresolved upset the ancestor may have taken with them to the grave? Then, proceed as follows.
1. Surround yourself with the sapphire-blue container of light, healing, and repair. At first, your job is just to become aware, stay out of the fray, and determine what your ask will be.
2. Next, if you know about this part of your history, attend to who had a fight or argument. With who, and why? Who was shunned, shamed, or scapegoated? Who was unable to forgive? What is the back story here? If you had no living relatives to ask about family cut-offs, tune in to what you do know about your family history, and pay attention to what feels connected or relevant for you to get a general sense that you can still work with. This information can provide a source of understanding as to where this angry figure in your dreams comes from. You can then more easily do grudge-healing work, help them let go, and send them back over the veil to be healed.
3. Once you have answers, keep this information in a safety box in your mind. Better yet, write it down and put it away until you are ready and have the resources to do this healing work. A protocol can be found in chapter 8.
Message Six: “Carry On My Name and Gifts to Your Children and Your Children’s Children. Remember.”
There is one last message the ancestors may want to convey by appearing in your dreams: to rekindle their light. How can you honor your ancestors’ memories, pass on their gifts, and remember them for future generations? If they continue to show up in your dreams or little hints of them keep nudging you in your waking life, it may be a message that your ancestors want to be recalled, remembered, and honored. In Jewish tradition and the Torah, one of the key messages repeated over and over is m’dor l’dor, “from generation to generation.” This is one of the ways we all survive in the world: by passing on the gifts from our ancestors. Moreover, you can heal the legacy of an ancestor who needs healing before passing their memory down to the next generation. My congregational rabbi, Josh Breindel, says that remembering is a devotional act.
There are many ways you can honor and remember your ancestors, including naming your children after them. You may use the ancestor’s full name, the translation of their name in your native tongue, or even the first letter of their name. My friend Shari took her grandmother’s name as her own last name at a transitional time in her life. She was finding her own way, separating from some of the challenging legacies of her family of origin, and she had committed to healing from a series of traumatic losses that included the loss of her home, marriage, and health. Shari’s Nana Rose was the only family member in whose presence she consistently felt genuine compassion, tenderness, and kindness, so to honor her grandmother, Shari legally changed her last name to Rose. In addition to honoring her grandmother of that name, Shari was choosing to rise, to transcend, to overcome. The name Rose spoke to Shari’s desire to elevate her spirit and to help others do so as well. Nana Rose would be proud that this was the purpose of her new namesake, and she periodically shines through in Shari’s dreamscapes.
Another way to honor your ancestors is by using artifacts you have inherited from them in your daily life or in moments of celebration. You could cook the foods you learned from them or collect their recipes, in their own handwriting if you are lucky. Every time I make date nut bread
What Are Your Ancestors Telling You or Asking of You?
or four-bean casserole, I smile as I see my mom’s beautiful cursive handwriting on the recipe card. You could plant the same flowers, herbs, or vegetables in your garden that they planted in theirs. Of course, you can honor their memory in many other ways, including music, art, ritual, ceremony, and shrine building. At our core, humans are still hunter-gatherers. This may be why we tend to accumulate tchotchkes, little pieces of the lives of our parents and grandparents that we just can’t let go of. These objects contain meaning and memories. When I clean a home after a loved one’s death, I often spend much more time than I thought I would, as each throw pillow, dinner plate, and item of clothing brings back memories and stories.
Music is another memory keeper. The music of your ancestors, of your family lineage, is another way to keep connected. By singing and/or playing their music, you connect to the language they spoke and the melodies of their lives and lands, and the music can get under regular layers of consciousness. At a recent song workshop I participated in, we were asked by the instructor to listen with our bodies to a tune, beyond the words, and to get a sense of where the tune took us in time and place. It was very powerful.
Once you have created a means of remembering, honoring, and passing down an ancestor’s legacy to your descendants, you will likely get a confirmatory dream or message of some kind. This is the ancestor’s way of acknowledging you or thanking you. After my colleague Anna told her daughter about their Cherokee heritage and showed her their family tree, she dreamt of a white feather. Anna knew in her bones that this was her grandfather’s acknowledgment that his legacy was being passed on and honored.
Remembering your ancestors may also be about integrating a fuller sense of their lives and stories. As you converse with them, work with them, walk and talk and dream with them, you may learn more about them. For example, you may learn about hidden acts of kindness they performed, the reason and rationale behind their apparent cruelties, and the traumas or griefs they suffered. Learning this information can help account for behaviors that feel difficult or unexplainable.
Inviting Your Ancestors in Through Dream Incubation
Sometimes the ancestors are just waiting to be invited to show up, whether in your dreams or in waking life through synchronicities and symbols. Dream incubation is one way of inviting them in. This is the practice of dreaming with intention, sometimes called “dreaming on purpose.”
Dream incubation has been around for millennia. The dream temples of Asclepius in ancient Greece attracted pilgrims from far and wide. Visitors traveled to these temples to heal body, mind, and spirit. They underwent a ritual purification with the temple priests and priestesses, then slept overnight in the temple with their quest for healing as the intention for their dreams to respond to. Small non-venomous snakes were let loose in the night; they were said to whisper the dreams in the visitors’ ears. In the morning, temple guides would help visitors interpret their dreams.14
Variations on traveling to a sacred site for powerful dreams or visions abound in spiritual literature. The Bible and the Koran are full of these journeying stories, as are the teaching stories of many indigenous groups around the world.
For our purposes, travel and snakes are not necessary—but intention is. With intention, you can point your dreaming self in the direction you want to go. If your goal is to connect with your ancestors, start with that intention and invite them in.
EXERCISE
Dream Incubation to Connect with Ancestors
Use this exercise before going to bed if you want to connect with your ancestors. Connecting with ancestors in your dreams can be as simple as writing or speaking a sentence of intention before you go to sleep.
1. Spend some time thinking about who you would like to invite into your dream. Be clear about who you are inviting, whether it is a specific person or a general request for someone from your lineage. Some souls have finished
14. Patton, “Dream Incubation.”
What Are Your Ancestors Telling You or Asking of You?
their work here in peace and are pleased to be contacted and invited, while others may be hurting or angry. Use this protocol to connect with a benevolent ancestor.
2. Once you have decided who you would like to invite into your dream, surround yourself with protection so that you don’t inadvertently invite in overwhelming or malevolent beings or entities. Create your container of light, as discussed earlier in this chapter.
3. Set your intention. You can write it in your dream journal or say it aloud; speak in at least a whisper so your ears can hear what your mouth is saying. If you aren’t sure what to say, use the following intention: “As I surround myself with the blue light of protection and clarity, I invite my [mother, father, grandmother, brother, etc.] to visit me tonight. May they come in peace and depart in peace, and may they know that I love them and would welcome a visit.”
4. Your ancestor may or may not visit on your first invitation. Don’t give up! Keep inviting them. Modify the words in your intention if need be. If an ancestor does make contact, it may be while you are sound asleep or in that liminal space between waking and sleeping. Your ancestor may visit as themself, or their presence may be a voice, sound, smell, or touch. Don’t dismiss any form of contact. You will recognize something specific that is their signature.
A Dream or a Visit?
When dreaming of the departed, many people speak of it as a visit rather than a dream. Visits are reported particularly often in the first weeks after someone dies. What is the difference between a dream and a visit? In a dream, what you see is a character who is part of your dream story. It may be that the dream character is clearly your mother, but she is acting within
the dream along with known or unknown dream people. Or there may be a character in the dream who does not look like your dad but, somehow, you know it is him.
By contrast, in a visit, you will likely have a powerful and visceral felt sense of your loved one’s presence. You can feel the essence of your beloved right there with you, as if they were still alive. A visit is usually more vivid, more intense, more colorful, and more real. You may hear their voice or feel the touch of their hands as concrete occurrences. Often, there is a numinosity in either the visit or the person, a sense of light, glowing, shining, shimmering, or larger-than-life brightness.
Sometimes a visit comes in other bodies. A bright red cardinal came and tapped at my mom’s bedroom window every day for a week after my stepdad Bud died. This had never happened before, and it’s never happened since. My mom was convinced that it was her beloved husband. We gladly joined her in this, and whenever a cardinal visits my house, we say, “Hi Bud.” It always makes me smile. In many cultures and in folklore, birds are said to carry the spirit of the departed to the living.
Sometimes visitations occur spontaneously; other times, they only come by invitation. My hairdresser reports frequent visits from her departed mom and sister. She is, like me, a thin-boundaried person who easily crosses thresholds. One day, her husband (who works with her in the salon) overheard us talking and piped in, “Mine never visit.” I suggested to him that they might just be waiting for an invitation, if he was interested in a visit. He replied that it didn’t really matter that much to him. His ambivalence and lack of interest in having them show up was probably part of the reason he hadn’t experienced this. We all have different relationships with the dreaming world as well as with relatives.
Dreamer and author Mike Marble shares, “I ask if they have requested a dream with the person they desire to connect with. They often seem surprised by this inquiry. Just as someone waits for an invitation to dinner, some of us don’t assume an unannounced visit is warranted. Remembering our dreams and setting an intention to meet up with that person
increases the likelihood of it occurring. It’s a two-way street so to speak.” 15 I love the analogy of waiting for a dinner invitation, rather than just showing up at someone’s house. Seems that there might be a protocol that some ancestors prefer to follow!
“A rare combination of scholarship and fascinating insight about generational trauma gained from personal experience and therapeutic practice.”
J. M. Debord, author of The Dream Interpretation Dictionary and the Reddit.com dream expert known as RadOwl
